From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Dired: Improve symmetry in mark/unmark commands bound to keys Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 22:14:48 +0300 Message-ID: <831t07bxlj.fsf@gnu.org> References: <877fa12iyq.fsf@linux-m68k.org> <83h995ay04.fsf@gnu.org> <87y42h13pi.fsf@linux-m68k.org> <83fuopax4g.fsf@gnu.org> <87twd512pk.fsf@linux-m68k.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1474830902 1948 195.159.176.226 (25 Sep 2016 19:15:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 19:15:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: tino.calancha@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Andreas Schwab Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 25 21:14:56 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1boEsy-0007PJ-Vb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:14:49 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40095 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1boEsx-0001Bh-EU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:14:47 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52284) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1boEss-0001Ba-1i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:14:43 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1boEsr-0001cB-0U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:14:41 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:58110) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1boEsn-0001bS-8s; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:14:37 -0400 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:3498 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1boEsj-0007Pp-Cl; Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:14:35 -0400 In-reply-to: <87twd512pk.fsf@linux-m68k.org> (message from Andreas Schwab on Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:07:35 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:207795 Archived-At: > From: Andreas Schwab > Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:07:35 +0200 > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, tino.calancha@gmail.com > > No, they make absolutely no sense. The prefix was obviously never > intented to be used with this command. The only intented use of the > second argument was the its caller, dired-flag-extension. That is easy > to prove, because before commit 736b582 it wasn't even documented in the > doc string. Before commit 736b582 the doc string didn't mention that EXTENSION could be a list, either. Like the optional argument, the fact that it could be a list was only mentioned in the comment, which was later moved into the doc string. So by that logic the list feature also makes no sense, which is of course absurd. IOW, this argument proves nothing. Look, if you want to convince me, either get the author(s) of the code tell that they made a mistake using that 'P' in the interactive spec, or come up with a _very_ plausible theory how it could happen without the author really meaning it to happen. The interactive spec in its form before my yesterday's changes was there since the day the function was added to Emacs. We need a clear understanding how did the spec end up being in that form when the programmer didn't mean to allow specification of the marker. This stuff doesn't get written by itself, so any explanation should be good and convincing. If we cannot prove to ourselves it was an accident or a mistake, then I object to removing this feature, even if we think it's not very useful, and even if we don't know who uses it or whether anybody used it in the past. I don't think we should knowingly remove existing features without a very good reason. Emacs is stable, and "stable" means existing features don't just disappear. If we want to have a convenient way of unmarking by extension without introducing a new function, let's do that without removing this feature of specifying the marker character. There are quite a few examples elsewhere in Emacs for how to get creative with prefix arguments; I'm sure one of them will allow us to support both features in this case.